Bitnami announced the addition of Azure support to Bitnami Stacksmith, an enterprise tool that automates the migration of traditional applications to cloud platforms.

Launched in February of 2018, Bitnami Stacksmith is an enterprise tool that simplifies the migration of traditional enterprise applications from the datacenter to the cloud. Stacksmith takes a running application in the datacenter, repackages and optimizes it for cloud deployment, and delivers everything needed to successfully deploy it to a container or cloud platform. Stacksmith then continuously monitors the replatformed application for updates and patches, providing an easy way for companies to keep applications up-to- date and secure.

Bitnami collaborated with Microsoft to add Microsoft Azure support to Stacksmith. Customers who wish to utilize Microsoft's IaaS cloud platform can now use Stacksmith to automatically package, deploy and maintain their traditional applications, creating optimized Azure-ready applications in the process. Stacksmith enables the creation of VMs as well as Containers, so this integration delivers support for both Azure and Azure Kubernetes Service platforms. And once replatformed, a host of Azure native cloud services become accessible to these applications.

This integration extends Bitnami's existing collaboration with Microsoft beyond the catalog of approximately 120 open-source applications and development stacks Bitnami currently packages, maintains, and publishes to the Azure Marketplace.

"Digital transformation and application modernization are important initiatives for our customers. Working with Bitnami to provide our users with tools like Stacksmith that can simplify that transition of their business directly to Azure cloud services is an exciting opportunity." said Gabe Monroy, Lead PM for Containers at Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Corp. "Bitnami has demonstrated the ability to package, deploy and maintain 120+ applications as a key partner in our Azure marketplace and we're thrilled to see that proven technology made available to our Azure users to migrate their own applications to our cloud platforms."

Stacksmith is designed for businesses interested in accelerating their digital transformation and modernization initiatives with a realistic approach. Stacksmith removes the complexity of application packaging, and provides the platform-specific know-how and best practices that simplify the process. It enables even those with limited cloud experience to migrate applications successfully - and gain experience along the way. It also lets enterprises realize many of the cloud native benefits of the target platform, without requiring an application's source code to be edited or re-written as cloud native.

"As enterprises look to Microsoft as a key partner in the cloud journey, we're excited to further simplify their application development and deployment experience. Automating the migration of traditional applications to the cloud with tools like Bitnami Stacksmith helps make Azure a premium platform for enterprise developers." said Erica Brescia, COO at Bitnami. "We're thrilled to continue our relationship with Microsoft and look forward to continued collaboration on Azure Services, Kubernetes, Helm, Stacksmith and the future of cloud application packaging and deployment."